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" Jamie Creel and Marco Scarani&amp;#039;s previous Paris pied-\u00E0-terre had a lot going for it. A top-floor view into a garden, 20-foot-high ceilings, immense windows. Still, there were drawbacks to the Saint-Germain-des-Pr\u00E9s spot. There was no guest room, so overnight visitors were out of the question. And the generous ceilings meant it was impossible to keep warm. &amp;quot;We would walk around in ski pants and ski sweaters,&amp;quot; Creel recalls. Thus when the men went in search of a new place to live, efficient heaters were on the agenda. Luckily they didn&amp;#039;t have to go far. The apartment they found, in the heart of an imposing townhouse built in the 1600s, backs onto the same garden.  Everything about the flat is grand, history included. It is located on the site of a onetime residence of Queen Margot, a notably lusty 16th-century royal, and Charles de Gaulle&amp;#039;s private secretary used to live downstairs. Creel and Scarani bought the 2,700-square-foot place at a vente \u00E0 la bougie (a traditional auction that involves the burning of several candles) after two years of hunting. &amp;quot;Parisians don&amp;#039;t really move,&amp;quot; Creel explains. &amp;quot;Families stay in their apartments for a lifetime, and sometimes they are willed to the next generation. Finding a great home is not easy.&amp;quot; As soon as they walked into this one, Scarani realized they had come to the end of their quest. He liked that it was full of light. Creel loved it too but had reservations: The rooms had not been touched in 50 years and, strangely, most of the walls were painted black. &amp;quot;My initial reaction was, Oh my God! This will be a lot of work!&amp;quot; he says. And it was. Some 18 months was needed just to complete the structural alterations. New double doors join the sitting room and master bedroom, and three tiny rooms were turned into an airy eat-in kitchen. Two other spaces were combined into an elegant round dining room. Paneling that failed to make the grade was removed, and the brick fireplaces were sheathed with slate. &amp;quot;A lot of people want voil\u00E0!&amp;quot; Creel says. &amp;quot;We decided to renovate over a long period and then take time finding furnishings we really liked.&amp;quot; They also wanted to create a visually different environment from their main residence, a traditional apartment on New York&amp;#039;s Upper East Side. As Creel notes, &amp;quot;I have all my family stuff there, like portraits inherited from my grandparents. Here I wanted something that was about us.&amp;quot; Scarani hails from Sarnico on Lake Iseo in northern Italy, where his family&amp;#039;s firm builds yachts, while Creel is a sprig of an illustrious family tree. In 1639, Charles I of England gave Creel&amp;#039;s ancestor Lion Gardiner a 3,318-acre isle off the east end of Long Island; today Gardiner&amp;#039;s Island belongs to his aunt. But more important than their connections is the duo&amp;#039;s intriguing taste, says Paris dealer Yves Gastou. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re capable of buying 18th- or 19th-century pieces and mixing them with modern designs,&amp;quot; he observes. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a quite explosive combination with a very American chic.&amp;quot; That look is one the men share with their style influences: Charles Sevigny, who decorated Hubert de Givenchy&amp;#039;s apartment in the 1960s, and tastemaker Chahan Minassian, whom they hired to create a cozy alcove in the apartment&amp;#039;s entrance hall. A number of the most eye-catching pieces in the flat came from Gastou&amp;#039;s eponymous gallery on rue Bonaparte, such as the living room&amp;#039;s futuristic Philippe Hiquily armchair and Jean-Claude Farhi sculpture. Other acquisitions are more sentimental, having been obtained from the friends who made them. There are sculptures by Manuela Zervudachi, including a large bronze in the entrance hall entitled Transmission. There is also a painting by Dutch artist Erik Adriaan van der Grijn, whom Creel and Scarani met when they purchased an apartment from him in Buenos Aires. And standing in the dining room is a medal cabinet that belonged to Paris man-about-town Claude Roland. Having admired it for years in Roland&amp;#039;s flat, Creel bought it as a memento after his death. Antiques hunting is one of Creel&amp;#039;s passions. When in Paris, he goes to the auction house Drouot almost every day. He is also an avid collector of architectural models. &amp;quot;In New York, I have them all over the floor,&amp;quot; he admits. Here the models are displayed on shelves in the library. That space is also home to a number of treasures Creel and Scarani have brought back from their travels: rock crystal from Asia, an amethyst from South Africa, wooden hat blocks from London. Despite living amid room after room outfitted in considerable splendor and enviable creature comforts, Scarani likes to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. With its long metal bar and banquette seating, it is reminiscent of a classic caf\u00E9 and offers a wonderful view over the Seine, with the domed Institut de France in the foreground and the Louvre in the distance. &amp;quot;I want to wake up and see the city moving,&amp;quot; Scarani notes. &amp;quot;I get anxious if it&amp;#039;s too quiet.&amp;quot; His partner, on the other hand, prefers the tranquillity indoors and the adjacent garden. As Creel explains, &amp;quot;You could almost be in the country.&amp;quot; Click here for the resources. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/interior-designers/tips/a3863/paris-match-a-52694/>